Patent Application
20110230246
1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to word games, specifically social networking word games
2. Description of Prior Art
Word forming games using individual letters of the alphabet are known in the prior art. “Scrabble” (trademark) is the most famous. In this game, players receive a number of tiles containing letters and point values, from a fixed set of tiles which never changes. The point values are based on the frequency of the letters in the specific language. Players attempt to use all of their tiles to make words which they place on a game board, each player building on the first and subsequent words that are formed by players so the result looks like a crossword puzzle. Players add up the points on each of the letter tiles they use in their words and they record the result. Players end up with a total of points for the game which they compare with each others' score. There are other word forming games that have features similar to those in Scrabble. Some of these games use playing cards instead of tiles and they do not use a game board.
“Boggle” (trademark) is another type of word game. Boggle style games have a rectangular array of letters and the player is expected to form as many words from adjacent letters as is possible in a fixed time. Sometimes the player is given a bonus for finding specific words, using a specific letter, or for finding words of a longer length. Sometimes the letters are replaced by other letters once used, and sometimes the rectangular array of letters is fixed throughout the game. Popular casual games on the market which derive from Boggle include “Bookworm” (trademark) and “Scramble” (trademark).
“Word Yahtzee” (trademark) is a word game where the letters are chosen by rolling dice which have letters on their faces. After a roll the player has a set amount of time to make as many words as possible out of the letters rolled. The scoring is somewhat complex being based on a per letter value (as in Scrabble) with a number of other special situations (e.g., all vowels).
Some word card games consist of a deck of cards and method of play, the cards of which contain a letter of the alphabet and point designation. Player attempts to use all of his or her cards to form a word or words before other players. They also add up the point value of letters in the words they make to determine a score for the game. Games currently on the market called “Letras” (trademark) and “Quiddler” (trademark) are examples of these. Both Letras and Quiddler include a method of play in which one game consists of several hands. In Letras, the dealer decides on the number of cards to be dealt in each of such hands, such number to be between three and eight. Hands are dealt and words formed until a player accumulates a certain predetermined number of points. In Quiddler, the number of cards dealt in each hand is fixed, with the first hand being three cards, the next four, and on up to a hand of ten cards. Then point scores are compared.
Known prior art therefore discloses and suggests word games that, while possessing a common goal of forming words, suffer from the following disadvantages:
a) The object of most of these games is to form as many words as possible, rather than a single optimal word. There is a need for a word game which focuses on finding the single most valuable word.
b) The player has no control over the random selection of the letters from which the words are made, nor their corresponding point value. There is a need for a word game where part of the player's strategy is to influence the random selection of the available letters.
c) The point value of the letters is based on the frequency of use in the given language. There is a need for a word game in which the value of the letters is not just based on the infrequency of occurrence within the language, but rather can be influenced by the player, can differ for different instances of the same letter, and hence requires a layer of strategic word making apart from just word recognition (making mathematical calculations simultaneous with finding an optimal word).
d) The player is only presented with a small number of letters (seven or less) from which to make a word. There is a need for a word game with ten or more available letters to test players' vocabulary of longer words.
e) All words in the dictionary are considered with equal validity. There is a need for a word game which gives credit for recognizing the most common words and not penalizing the player for not recognizing esoteric three letter words or obscure longer words.
f) While some online games present players the opportunity to challenge other players to play a game with identical letter choices, there is a need for a game in which a player can personalize and customize the instance of the game that the challenged players must play.
A multi-round word game in which players select a subset of their friends or contact list as the base names to determine a set of randomly selected letters and corresponding ordinal values, from which players must submit a valid optimal word within a given time frame, whose point value is determined by a combination of the ordinal values of each of the letters used, the length of the word, the time remaining when submitted, and the characteristics of the names and usage of the chosen base names.
Accordingly, several objects and advantages of the present invention are:
1. The letters are selected from a set of base names or words selected by the player, giving the player some strategic control over which letters are selected by determining the pool of letters from which some are randomly selected
2. The player is encouraged to expand the set of base names or words he is able to choose from, by, for example, acquiring new friends on a social networking site so that he has a broader range of base names or words to choose from
3. The value of the letters is determined by their ordinal position in the base name or word, as opposed to the prior art where the letter values are either a uniform “1” (length of the word being the sole or primary determinant of value) or are determined by letter usage frequency, such as in Scrabble 4. Different instances of the same letter can have different values, encouraging the player to correctly choose the letter with higher value when forming the word for submission
5. Players can challenge other players to replay the personalized and customized instance of the game that they have created through careful selection of the base names or words from which the randomly selected letters are chosen
6. The dictionary is broken down into a set of common and uncommon words, and players may be rewarded for finding common words while not being penalized for missing esoteric or obscure words.
Base Names or Words—the set of letters from which one letter is randomly selected and the ordinal value calculated
Game—a game is comprised of fixed rounds and a score which is a summary of the scores of all rounds
Game Instance—a specific set of fixed rounds, letter choices and values, and rules which is presented to the player as the current game
Length Bonus—a bonus given to the player for making a word of a certain length, for instance 25 points for a 7-letter word
Ordinal Value—the value assigned to a randomly selected letter based on the position of the letter in the base name or word; for instance, in the name John Doe, the “e” would have an ordinal value of 7 because it is the seventh letter, whereas the “h” would have an ordinal value of 3 because it is the third letter
Replay Game—a game in which a player is offered exactly the same tiles as was previously offered other players of that exact same game
Round—a round is a single opportunity for a player to choose the optimal word or words from a given set of letters
Streak Bonus—a bonus given to the player for using the randomly selected letter from the same base name or word in the valid submitted word in subsequent rounds; for instance, in the name John Doe, if the player is offered an “e” in round 1, and uses it to submit the word “patent”, and then is offered an “n” in round 2, and uses it to submit the word “application”, the player may receive a streak bonus of 1 point
Streak Penalty—a penalty given to the player for NOT using the randomly selected letter from the same base name or word in the valid submitted word in subsequent rounds; for instance, in the name John Doe, if the player is offered an “e” in round 1, and submits the word “applicant”, and then is offered an “n” in round 2, and submits the word “accept”, the player may receive a streak penalty of negative 1 point
Tile—the combination of a letter and its corresponding ordinal value
The Preferred Embodiment of the game consists of a player selecting a subset of names from a broader lists of base names, for example a subset of 10 names from a Facebook friends list of 300 names. The game then generates a single tile from each of these names, each tile containing a letter and its ordinal value. The player then creates the single highest value word in the limited time available, and submits it. The game's dictionary checks the validity of the word, and if valid the game presents the scoring of the word. The player then makes adjustments to the subset of 10 names, and the process continues for 10 rounds.
In the first Alternative Embodiment, the player does not need to select a subset of names from which tiles are generated. Instead, the tiles from a previous original game are used, speeding up game play. All other aspects of the game are the same. Since the player is replaying a game from previously generated tiles, it is possible to do a “fair” comparison of the player's game with other player's initial plays of that same game.
In the second Alternative Embodiment, the player is tasked with trying to come up with as many of the highest 20 scoring words as possible from the set of 10 tiles offered. The player has unlimited time to do so, but loses points as time passes.
In the third Alternative Embodiment, players each play the same instance of a game individually, synchronously or asynchronously, and the top individual score from each round is used to generate a team score for the 10 round game.
A method and system for playing the Preferred Embodiment of the game are disclosed (using one gender for simplicity's sake).
There are strategies to picking the subset of names. A good player will try to go for longer names, since the ordinal values have the potential to be higher. For instance, the “S” in the name John Jones would have an ordinal value of 9, whereas the “S” in the name Madeleine Landers would have an ordinal value of 15. But it is also important to pick names that have a low amount of difficult letters, like “Z” and “Q”, and to pick names that have a high vowel content to help ensure that at lest some of the ten letters are vowels. Names that have multiple letters used in common prefixes and suffixes are also valuable, like “I”, “N”, “G”, “S”. Of course, this is no guaranty that any particular letter will be randomly selected by the game, but it does influence the odds of the letter being selected at least once. Also, shorter names receive a higher streak bonus for consecutive use and lower names a higher streak penalty for lack of use, so an effective strategy mixes the use of long and short base names. Finally, since once a letter has been selected it is removed from the base name, a name that has been selected for the subset will decline on value. After five rounds, the name Madeleine Landers will only have 10 of its original 15 letters remaining, so even if the “S” is still available it will have an ordinal value of just 10.
For all the preceding reasons, it is important for a player to carefully choose her subset of ten names, and replace these in subsequent rounds. A player who does not replace the subset of ten names will find that some names no longer have any letters remaining, and hence no tile for that name will be created, and the others have tiles with low single-digit values, or even negative values once the streak penalties are factored in.
At the completion of Step 110, the player is presented with the ten tiles that have been generated and the timer starts winding down from 60 seconds. The player looks for the optimal word that she can make, simultaneously taking into account the value of each tile, a length bonus tied to the length of the word for words of six or more letters, the certainty of the validity of the word in the game's dictionary, and the time bonus for the amount of time remaining on the timer when the valid word is submitted. The first valid word submitted is the word from which the player's score is derived, so she wants to make sure that that is the best word she can come up with before submitting. To form a word, the player clicks on a tile in the top row list of all available letters and that tile is placed as the next tile in the word below. Depending on the device, the player can also touch select a tile or place it between letters or rearrange the order of the tile on either rack.
The player only gets to submit one valid word for scoring, no matter how many words she sees. That is one of the features that separates this game from many other word games in the prior art. If the player submits a word that is not in the games dictionary, the game will simply report back to the player that the “Word is not in the dictionary” and the player can use the remaining time, if any, to try again. Players are hence encouraged to “try” new words that they might be unsure of. However, the process of forming a word on the word rack takes time, so this discourages extensive guessing.
If a player fails to submit a valid word in the time frame allowed, the player “Times Out” and no valid word is submitted, the player receives zero points for the round.
If a player needs to pause the game (e.g. take a phone call on a mobile device), the tiles disappear and the player will return to that same moment in the game when the player is ready to resume playing that game.
After the player submits her valid word, the word is instantly scored in Step 125.
Note that had the player submitted the word “BASHER” with the other “R” tile, the one with an ordinal value of 3, she would have received three less points for the tile value. Part of the game play requires the player to quickly select not only the desired letter, but also the one with the most value since there are frequently two or more of the same letters with different values. In subsequent rounds, the players also have to take into account the streak values and streak continuation when making this decision, enhancing the difficulty of quick decision making and tile selection when playing this Preferred Embodiment. Having tiles of the same letter, but differing values is another feature that distinguishes this game from much of the prior art.
In Step 130, the game proceeds to Round 2. In
Steps 100 through 130 are repeated until all ten rounds have been played. In Step 135 the game is ended and the final score is tallied.
In the first Alternative Embodiment, the player does not need to select a subset of names from which tiles are generated. Instead, the tiles from a previous original game are used, speeding up game play. All other aspects of the game are the same. Since the player is replaying a game from previously generated tiles, it is possible to do a “fair” comparison of the player's game with other players' initial plays of that same game. Also, this speeds up the game considerably, by cutting out steps 100 and 105.
After the ten rounds, the game ends and the final score is tallied (Step 235). The player then compares her score against other players of the same game.
In the second Alternative Embodiment, the player is tasked with trying to come up with as many of the highest 20 scoring words as possible from the set of 10 tiles offered. The player has unlimited time to do so, but loses points as time passes.
If the submitted word is a valid dictionary word, but the tile plus length bonus value is below the value required to make the top 20 ranking of Common Word Rank list, then the word is listed in the right-most column, and the player receives no points for it. If the submitted word is a valid dictionary word and is of sufficient value to make the top 20 ranking of Common Word Rank list, but deemed an uncommon word, the player receives the same value as if the word had been on the Common Word Rank list. For example, in the case resented in
There is not time limit to the second Alternative Embodiment game. Instead, the player receives a time penalty of one point for every 15 seconds of time that expire. The player can end the game at any time. The object of this game is to achieve the high water mark score, that is the Max Score So Far listed in the far right hand corner of
The player can pause the game at any time, and the game board disappears, with play picking up at the precise point the player paused when play resumes.
In the third Alternative Embodiment, players each play the same instance of a game individually, synchronously or asynchronously, and the top individual score from each round is used to generate a team score for the 10 round game.
Accordingly the reader will see that the proposed game provides:
a) a word game which focuses on finding the single most valuable word, instead of simply forming as many words as possible.
b) a word game in which the player has strategic influence over the specific letters available and their corresponding point values, instead of just being presented with letters of preset value from a fixed pool of letters.
c) a word game in which the values of the letters can be influenced by the player, instead of being based on the infrequency of occurrence within the language, and can differ even between instances of the same letter, forcing the player to make mathematical calculations simultaneous with finding an optimal word.
d) a word game which has more than seven letters available from which to make a word, extending players' vocabularies of longer words, prefixes, and suffixes.
e) a word game which gives credit for recognizing common words instead of penalizing players for not recognizing obscure three letter words or obscure longer words
f) a word game in which players can challenge other players to play a game with identical tile choices, the letters and values of which have been influenced by the initiating player
g) a word game in which players cooperate as a team playing synchronously or asynchronously to improve the team score and compete against other teams
While the above description contains many specificities, these should not be construed as limiting the scope of the invention, but as merely providing illustrations of some of the presently preferred embodiment of the invention. For example, the number of available tiles from which to make a word could be more or less than ten; the amount of available time and the scoring for time remaining could be changed or turned off entirely; the streak bonuses and penalties could be adjusted or turned off entirely; the length bonuses could changed; the language, letters and dictionary could be changed to Spanish, German, French or other languages; or players could swap or acquire different base names from which to select from.
Accordingly, the scope of the invention should be determined not by the embodiment illustrated, but by the appended claims or their legal equivalents.
A provisional patent application for this invention was filed Mar. 19, 2010 by the above inventors, priority which is claimed. The application number of the provisional patent is 61/315,467.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 61315467 | Mar 2010 | US |
